Yet no! I must not say nothing: Lablache is excellent,--voice, intonation, manner of song, action.
Ronconi I found good in the Doctor of "_L'Elisire d'Amore_".

For the higher parts Grisi, though now much too large for some of her parts, and without a particle of poetic grace or dignity, has certainly beauty of feature, and from nature a fine voice.

But I find her conception of her parts equally coarse and shallow.

Her love is the love of a peasant; her anger, though having the Italian picturesque richness and vigor, is the anger of an Italian fishwife, entirely unlike anything in the same rank elsewhere; her despair is that of a person with the toothache, or who has drawn a blank in the lottery.
The first time I saw her was in _Norma_; then the beauty of her outline, which becomes really enchanting as she recalls the first emotions of love, the force and gush of her song, filled my ear, and charmed the senses, so that I was pleased, and did not perceive her great defects; but with each time of seeing her I liked her less, and now I do not like her at all.
Persiani is more generally a favorite here; she is indeed skilful both as an actress and in the management of her voice, but I find her expression meretricious, her singing mechanical.

Neither of these women is equal to Pico in natural force, if she had but the same advantages of culture and environment.